Certain environments and events cause extreme conditions that are not present in a normal environment. In particular, certain environments and events can cause objects in that environment to experience extreme shocks, temperatures, and exposure to liquid such that the object can be damaged. For example, data gathering instruments, that are susceptible to the extreme forces in the environment, may need to pass through these extreme environments in order to acquire and preserve the data for which the data gathering instruments are designed. Further, at times humans may need to pass through extreme environments that could potentially be lethal. To withstand these extreme conditions, objects can be insulated from the heat by relatively brittle insulating materials and relatively uncompressible heat absorbing materials. Generally, the insulating material surrounds a layer of heat absorbing material, where the heat absorbing material surrounds the data gathering instrument. Further, in certain situations, due to the brittleness and incompressibility of the insulating and heat absorbing material, an object is enclosed in heavy-gauge hardened steel to provide protection against shocks.
Due to the weight of the steel, an optimization process is used to reduce the total enclosed volume and weight of the enclosure while still providing the desired protection against extreme conditions. However, optimization of the enclosure geometry for structural robustness and practical limitations on the dimensions of the data storage device lead to uneven distribution of insulation and/or heat absorbing material. Further, in certain embodiments, a steel enclosure accounts for approximately 65% of the weight of the protective covering enclosing the protected object.